Out with the old and in with the new

As the Sparks have been to Washington and been home for a long time now, it seemed appropriate to make a new beginning.

Please follow Ordinary Life, Ordinary World for the latest on our....well....Ordinary Life, Ordinary World!

http://ordinarylifeordinaryworld.blogspot.com/

What time is it? Geesh I need a coffee to wake me up...

The coffee capsules that I order for our whizzy machine arrived today. Considering it was free 72 hour delivery and I only ordered them on Sunday afternoon I was very pleased with the great service. I was slightly less pleased that they chose to deliver them at 07:15 this morning though!! I suppose them phoning us to say they were outside was better than taking them to some impossible to find depot in the middle of nowhere (or Kidderminster) and making us come and get them. But still....07:15....CRUELLY EARLY!!

I'm feeling better!

YAY! I'm finally feeling almost human...and that is saying a lot considering how I've been feeling the past few days. My shoulder is still hurting - but that is the least of the problems. My blood tests came back clear too, so we're all good. Well, good in that they're normal, but not good in that my spots and spouting facial hair isn't explained away by me having PCOS. I guess I'm just hairy and spotty!! I'll just have to embrace it and turn the epilator to "turbo"!

I was back at the doctors office this morning for that most dreaded of appointments. Nothing about this appointment is good. The preparation we do is stringent. The waiting is stressful. The exam is uncomfortable. There is something quite distrubing about having a woman with a torch peering up your...yes well. It wasn't fun! I hope she appreciated the new lingerie! But maybe the stick on crystal decorations were a bit too much... "Give 'em the ol' vajazzle dazzle...vajazzle dazzle 'em"...!!!

Okay, so I didn't...but vajazzling is apparantly a growing trend. Not sure it'll catch on round here too soon though. If I start finding crystals on the floor of the ladies in work I'll know I've been proved wrong!!

I was wrong about fish pedicures. I remember watching Ugly Betty years ago and thinking "Yeough, that'll never catch on" and now you can go dunk your feet into a tank of fish and have them nibble off the dead skin in the middle of the shopping malls of Glasgow. (Malvern may take a while to catch up!) I was looking at this and thinking "not for me" - I don't think I'd like the sensation of them nibbling my tootsies, and it did cross my mind that it may not be terribly hygenic -  but then I am a little bit OCD!! Now I see that health experts have raised the possibility of infections being spread, and yet others point out that its a widely used technique in the Far East - I wonder who is right and how long it'll be before I'm paying a pound a minute to stick my feet in a fish tank!  (Have just checked Wikipedia and found out that the first place to offer fish pedicures in the US was Alexandria, VA in 2008! I wonder where? I was totally unaware of that when we lived there!)

Poor me

I mentioned my enormous spot on my Twitter postings. It truly was enormous - half of my nose swelled dramatically and it was positively purple on Tuesday! It had, of course, begun to swell on Saturday so I was busy with make-up and when that failed, resorted to standing behind taller people in the wedding photos!

I also picked up a head cold when I was in Scotland. It was messy!! I couldn't be more than 4 inches from a box of tissues for fear of sneezing and...I won't go into details. It is sufficient to say it was messy!!!! I was concerned enough about the nose thing to actually go to the Doctors on Wednesday. It turns out I have the remains of a chest infection (which I didn't know I had), a red, inflamed throat (which I did know I had!) and swollen glands. Oh, and the spot was more of an abscess. I was prescribed antibiotics and booked in for blood tests to try and get to the bottom of my spots which have flared again.

Since starting the antibiotics I have been on the Erythromycin diet! I have never, ever felt so nauseous EVER. I felt pretty bad on Thursday. During Thursday night I couldn't move as moving triggered overwhelming waves of nausea. I couldn't get out of bed on Friday and managed to eat a whole digestive biscuit in 36 hours. The nausea passed (mostly) by Saturday afternoon, but now the little I'm managing to eat is turbo charged. Also, my slightly achy shoulder is now causing pain. JOY! My body has turned against me!!! I am a delight to behold! I tell you - I feel so much more sympathetic for pregnant women now. If that is what morning sickness is like then, phew - hats off to you amazing ladies!!

A wee trip to Scotland

Poor Stephen wasn't very well last week. He came down with a cold just a few days before we were due to drive to Scotland, which caused us a little debate about when we should drive up. Fully expecting to abandon the original plan to travel on Thursday afternoon we did no packing, until Stephen announced around noon that we may as well get it over with as there was no guarantee that he'd feel any better on the Friday. We had looked out what clothes we were taking and this was quickly and neatly packed, but we ended up throwing shoes, phone chargers, hair straighteners etc (ie all the odds and sods) into carrier bags. I was like a bag lady taking all my possessions out to the car! Must remember for next time that we do have holdalls for that sort of thing - it would certainly have made dragging the stuff in and out the car at each location much easier!!

The first stop of the Sparks go to Scotland tour was to East Kilbride to see Stephen's family. It was something of a whistlestop tour - compressed by Stephen's need for a 2 hour nap on Friday after taking far too much out of himself going to the driving range. This rather squashed the time available to get round everyone, but we made it!

The second stop was Loch Lomond, via the Romanian Orthodox Church in Glasgow, for Monica and Adrian's wedding. What a fabulous wedding it was! It was the first time at an Orthodox ceremony for most of the people there and I, for one, was quite fascinated by the ceremony and the priests singing the responses. Monica was telling us the next day that the priest was shaking as he doesn't normally have to conduct any part of the ceremony in English. I did have a smile when he welcomed us to the "weeding".

I had to work hard to suppress giggles, thanks to the small children behind us. In a bid to keep 3 young children amused during the ceremony their daddy was very quietly going through a picture book with them.
"Horse" said dad
"Horse" came the reply
"mumble" said dad
"SHITE" came the rather loud response
"Cow" said dad
"SHIIIITE" was the plaintive wail
By this time I was having to dig my nails into my palms to stop the giggles!!

Stephen had already bonded with Kenny (Adrian's brother in law) who was taking the photos and who had even more camera equipment than Stephen. I can only feel sorry for Elaine his wife, if she - like me, gets to carry it about! Stephen was taking loads of photos too, and between them they got a lovely set of photos. Kenny and Elaine were also exceedingly useful in a "follow that car" kind of way when it came from getting from the church onto the M8 to get to Ross Priory!!

The reception was wonderful. It was so good to catch up with all the Strathclyde University folks whom Stephen used to work with. Its too easy to forget that it was 17 years ago we left!! I was shocked to find that Helen's cute little daughter was now 21 years old!! Scottish water must be good for the skin as Helen doesn't look in any way old enough to have a 21 year old! She has barely changed at all.

The band were excellent too. It was ceildh, but now as you'd normally know it! They did all the traditional dances, but mixed in very modern music. So, for example, there would be Iron Maiden during the Virginia Reel (but not in a head-banging way). Very, very clever musicians indeed. (Have just googled The Big Shoogle - check out their My Space page for some music clips.)

To add a little frisson of excitement, Stephen managed to misplace his car keys. Hopefully this will teach him a lesson about putting things down behind him.... When the bridal car arrived at Ross Priory he'd dumped all his keys and camera equipment on a table at the top of the steps to the entrance in order to take photos. Someone helpfully swept everything up and took it inside...but they must have shoved his keys in a sporran or pocket - out of sight, out of mind! Thankfully I had my set of keys so we were okay, and thankfully Adrian got a call in the morning to say they'd turned up, and by a convoluted route we got them back to Stephen's mum so all we had to do was detour back to EK to collect them on our way home on Tuesday.

Our third stop was bonny Edinburgh to see even bonnier baby Leo....and the rest of the family too, of course! Poor Eve was loaded with the cold, so we were a fairly sorry lot coughing and sneezing away! It was funny as I'd had a dream that Leo was talking (in sentences no less!) and he is talking - just not in a language that we understand as yet! He chatters away quite the thing! Chad had taken a video of him chattering and we showed it to him. Leo's face was screwed up intently watching himself, then suddenly he burst into smiles and giggles. He was obviously telling jokes!! This was borne out by the fact that, from the video, we could hear Chad saying "You sure can deliver a punchline little fella". How funny!!

The very happy couple



The wee cutie (and Leo!)



My first twitter follower

How funny! I got my first follower on Twitter this morning...and its Michael McIntyre. Yes THE Michael McIntyre - King of Comedy!!!

Obviously he has recognised my genius and wants to read my pearls of wisdom every day....or it could just be an automated reciprocal arrangement because I follow him. But still....Michael McIntyre!!!! My very first twitter follower!!!! How many people can say that???!!!!!

Tweet tweet

Just because I can.... I've signed up to Twitter and linked the feed to my blog page - for on the hoof updates! Goodness knows if this will work. Might be a bit advanced for me!!!!

What is it they say? Follow me on Twitter @sparksgoto

:-)

Some photos

Contrary to rumours we DO occassionally take photos with people in them!

Our gorgeous and very talented niece Adele singing "Sway" on the stage in George Square in Glasgow



Me with my very gorgous and very snuggly nephew, Leo - aged 1 week



Back by popular demand - okay - actually by demand of Phil...!!!

Hey I'm back! From Outer Space.... Well not quite Outer Space, but it may as well have been! I've had a succession of lurgy pretty much back to back since Christmas and its robbed me of my writing mojo. Given a choice between coming home from work, flopping on the sofa and having a snooze or coming home from work and opening the laptop...well the snoozing won hands down every time!! That serves me right for not taking my Beroca and for working in an open plan office where everyone has a cold. We're all throwing our germs into the primordial soup and watching it mutate. I reckon at this rate we'll have brewed bubonic plague by next month!

Its not all been grim though. We had the pleasure of seeing Sir Willard White (amongst others) sing Verdi's Requiem at Malvern Theatres last weekend. It was a superb performance from all. I had goosebumps! The tenor scheduled to sing was taken ill and his spot was taken by an exceedingly brave tenor from the chorus. He did a great job - a little wobbly for the first few bars but he got into his stride very quickly and did a superb job.

It was our second visit to the Theatres last week. No, in fact it was our third! We had gone on Monday in the hope of seeing The Kings Speech only to find it was sold out. We booked up for Thursday instead and toddled along in time for a swift pint beforehand. Stephen was determined to get a drink down his neck before going in, expecting to see a Rom-Com. I was expecting a serious drama. It turns out we were both wrong! I wasn't expecting to be rolling on the floor with laughter for one thing!! I deserves every Oscar that its bound to win. It was one of the best films I've seen in years!

We've also FINALLY finished our photo wall! YAY for us! We started it waaaay back in the summer when I bought 30 frames and mounts and finished it about 2 weeks ago when the final print was hung. We had fun and games along the way!! We had all 30 printed and ready to go just after Christmas. Stephen got the drill out, marked up the wall and drilled the first set of holes. (We have an old house with solid walls so picture hooks just bounce off - which is why hanging anything on the wall is a job Stephen needs 6 months build up to!) I handed him the first picture and KEEEEERASHHHHH. It slid off the screw and hit the floor. The frame burst into 4 pieces and the glass into many more. Great. I had bought exactly the correct number of frames. No spares. And bought from a place that deals in bulk orders.... I breathed deeply and we pressed on. I was busy modifying the frames with picture wire to tether them to the screws in the wall and it was working brilliantly - clever me. The drilling stopped. The drill had run out of charge...which was just as well. I looked and did a double take. Someone (not me!!!) had measured and marked up wrongly, so all of the holes were a little too close together.... I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry!! At least we had time to charge the battery whilst we filled the holes and the polyfilla dried!!

To be honest, DIY is maybe not Stephen's strongest suit. Most of it goes fine, but there is the occasional little screw up, just to keep me amused...

We've turned the dining room into a second sitting room and opened up the wood fire again. It was all going great until he had to rehang a wall light (one of four in the room). All I heard was "Oh %$#&$^&". I was next door and walked into the room jokingly saying "Oh, what's happened. Don't tell me that you've hung it upside..." Yes, he had. It was upside down!!

Then there was the saga of the curtain poles in our bedroom. We were tired, we were niggly, we were rushing to go to the cinema. It was not the best time to be trying to do a spot of DIY. A mild marital was definitely in progress! I was taking great pains to point out to Stephen that the poles came in two parts and were joined by a screw so it was very important that he cut the excess length from the correct ends (ie not the ones with the pilot hole). He was ignoring me, so I was explaining again when he got ratty.

"Why on earth do you think I'll cut it from the wrong end?"

"Why on earth did you hand the wall light upside down? Because you can"

At this point thankfully we both dissolved into giggles. I went downstairs to make dinner and he carried on drilling and sawing. I looked in expectantly a little while later. The pole was up...but...the pole sloped down to the left at a good 20 degree angle!!!! I wasn't sure whether to say something or whether to just put up with self-opening curtains!!! I'm beginning to think we should buy shares in Polyfilla given the quantities we use! And I'm definitely thinking that I won't be letting him install the bathroom!!! Can you imagine?? I'd get in the bath for the first time and plunge through the ceiling into the kitchen below!!

Baby Leo arrives and the cold weather stays

The freezing weather continues. We have been okay-ish down here. We had snow last Wednesday, but no more than a few inches, unlike the rest of the country who could measure the snow in feet. It has been bitterly, bone chillingly cold all over the country and we've had freezing fog and very harsh frosts here in Malvern. We've been so lucky! We've got Christmas Card perfect scenes of trees covered in thick frost and Scotland has motorways closed and people forced to sleep in their cars as they've become stuck.

In the middle of all this horrible weather my sister and her hubby have welcomed their new baby. In the middle of a snow storm in Edinburgh and after 3 days in labour in hospital baby Leo arrived. He's a whopping 9lbs and 14oz as he was 2 weeks overdue - we figure he didn't fancy coming out when it was so cold! He looks utterly gorgeous in the photos. We're hoping to see him this weekend along with Stephen's family, but that rather does depend on it not snowing and the motorways being open. Fingers crossed!

Gimme a shot of Sarsaparilla Pardner

I had a little "moment" when I walked into the pub last night. For a start the bar had been renamed the "Saloon" and when we walked in the first person I saw was Desperate Dan. Everyone was dressed up as cowboys and saloon girls and we were dressed up as two people who'd been out in the extreme cold!! It was Wild West night at the pub. Who would have thought the village would embrace fancy dress theme nights, but it was packed and we were practically the only people there not dressed up! We obviously missed the memo!!

It's f-f-f-f-freeeeezing

Britain is currently in the grip of a Siberian winter and this mini Ice Age is due to continue for another couple of weeks according to the forecasts. I may not have all my digits by then! It was minus 10C (14F) when we got up this morning, and its never got above minus 3C (27F) all day. My feet are frozen! I've now got 2 pairs of socks on and they're still cold - I've practically got them IN the fire and they're only just beginning to warm up.

We had some snow yesterday. We were lucky - it was only a light dusting, like icing sugar on top of a sponge cake. Not the inches of snow that some parts of the country are getting. It was gone by lunchtime which both surprised and pleased me. I feared that it would get walked on and slippy and be with us for weeks due to the extremely cold temperatures, but YAY! I am Bambi when walking on ice and snow so I'm very happy when it doesn't hang around to cause me to bruise my ample butt padding!!

Decorating grinds to a halt

Stephen went shopping today for paint, brushes, rollers...everything you'd need to decorate a room. he was eager (well - ish!) to get stuck in. There was a bit of plaster that needed knocking out and replastering and, after phoning umpteen plasterers over the past week without a call back, he decided that it wasn't a big job and he'd just do it himself. After getting handy with a hammer things came to a grinding halt. The brick behind the plaster was soft, so its now time to get the damp-proofing specialists in as that's obviously a bit of a problem. This means that a pretty simple decorating job is now likely to be a major project which will no doubt take weeks....and the sofa is due to be delivered on Monday! Argh! The joys of living in a house which is 180 years old...

Actually, its as well Stephen isn't going to be doing the plastering. Last time he tried plastering it all crumbled and fell off when I began to paint it. It was, errr, rustic...!!!!!

Can you hear the shouting?

Stephen is watching the Rangers v Manchester United match and, being a highly excitable Scotsman, is yelling his head off. I'm sure his comments could clearly be heard in Glasgow if you'd like to open the door and have a listen.

It seems Rangers are playing that classic 6-3-1 formation. A formation that Stephen particularly enjoys shouting about...! Its difficult to score with only one man up front. Challenging game! However, its 80 minutes in and its still 0-0 so the six man defence is working. They should probably be thanking Sir Alex as he seemingly forgot to make sure his best defenders were on the coach. And Wayne Rooney is looking like he'd rather be anywhere than Glasgow tonight... There is hope...

Uh-oh.... Penalty to Man U.... Rooney is taking it.....and he scores. Stunned silence from the sofa next to me.

Rangers are now playing their other classic 1-0-9 formation. It looks like a primary school match with everyone running after the ball... A classic performance!

Home refurb is beginning - slowly

Having failed to find much time, or enthusiasm, for decorating the house in the 18 months since our return we are finally getting our act together. We have rather a lot of "stuff" in the house. We left a lot of "stuff" here when we went to the US, and we brought a whole house of "stuff" back with us. So we've essentially been climbing over piles of "stuff" for the longest time, having run out of clever places to put it all some time ago.

We took the bull by the horns a couple of weeks ago and gutted the Day Room which was just filled with junk. We also tackled the garage and threw out loads of "stuff". Result! We're still climbing over "stuff" but there is definitely less of it now...

Our first proper decorating project is the dining room, or the music room as it is soon to be. We have a massive dining table that we never actually use and we thought "what a waste of a room". So the table and chairs are going into the newly emptied garage, the open fire will be swept and properly re-instated and a sofa and chair have been purchased today. Working out the room dimensions has been funny. Whereas most people would just get a tape measure and work out what size of sofa would fit that approach is not for us. No. Perish the thought! We have to measure it very carefully and Stephen has to spend every free moment for a week creating a 3D CAD model of the room and proposed furniture...

The sofa comes in a couple of weeks and we still need to decorate and replaster a bit of the wall. I suspect that this will happen only when Stephen has created a team of android tradesmen and written a command programme...!!!!

Crucible exhibition at Gloucester Cathedral

After a tip off from a colleague Stephen and I headed down to Gloucester Cathedral a couple of weeks ago to see the sculpture exhibition that was taking place there. Despite Gloucester being only about 30 minutes away we hadn't been there since a visit about 16 years ago when we first moved down and made the mistake of going there as opposed to its near neighbour Cheltenham. Unlike Cheltenham, its not a Regency delight and shopping mecca...

The Cathedral turned out to be worth a visit, and the sculpture exhibition was just amazing. Amongst the many, many pieces on show was an Antony Gormley (the artist who created the Angel of the North and "Stockie") and a Damien Hirst. The only other Hirst piece I've actually seen in the flesh, so to speak, was in New York and it featured a shark and a large tank of formaldehyde. I'm sure it is a masterpiece of creative genius, but it does leave you with the little nagging thought at the back of your brain that given access to a shark and a large tank of formaldehyde "I could do that". I was therefore blown away by the Hirst piece that was on show. It was a remarkable bronze sculpture of the Exquisite Pain of St Bartholomew, showing the saint brandishing a pair of scissors with his skin draped over his arm. It was disturbing, detailed and beautiful.






 The Hirst drew much attention

A female figure haunts the Cloisters



I sat for 5 minutes on the cold, damp stone floor trying to get a good shot.
Low light, no tripod and camera shake due to the cold seeping into my bones made it challenging! 

The was stunning when the sun came out and shone through the glass and lit up the figure.

A more complete view of the Antony Gormley sculpture 

A very interesting fishy!

Sorry...

It amazing how time flies when your busy, mildly depressed due to the onset of winter dampness and gloomy dreich days, tired at night and very easily distracted. No posts for nearly a month...oops!

I'm sitting here on Saturday afternoon. Its about 3pm and its dark. Its not raining, but it is damp and very overcast. I really, really dislike this time of year in the UK. The dampness has begun...we've got about 6 months of this to look forward to. Urgh. Give me the frosty, blue-sky days any day!! We had a couple of those at the beginning of the week. It was -3C when I left the house on Monday morning and I had to scrape the car. A task that was made slightly more difficult by the fact that all the car doors had frozen shut and I only had a tiny amount of de-icer...in the trunk of the car which was, you got it, frozen shut. After using a bit of brute force I managed to get one door open so I could climb in and get the car started, blowers going full blast in an attempt to thaw it from the inside out. After 10 minutes of thawing I could finally get the boot open and get to the de-icer, but two doors were still not opening and the windows wouldn't wind down. This last fact gave me a few moments concern, as I did worry about how I was going to get onto site if I couldn't get the window down to swipe my pass...but thankfully after the drive to work everything was working and I didn't have to ram the gates to gain entry!

It was Cake Day in work on Friday, all proceeds going to Children in Need. People brought in cakes and these were sliced and wheeled round by volunteers whilst we formed reasonably orderly queues to buy the treats on offer. I had the most delicious piece of a biscuity, chocolate, peanut butter slice. It was delicious, but oh so rich...I had to drink a lot of water afterwards as I was feeling a teeny bit ick. I passed on later cake rounds and just donated money instead. Imagine my dismay when someone bought me a cupcake. I made a cuppa and squared my shoulders. This cake was not going to beat me. I had an honourable Scottish tradition of sugar consumption to uphold after all! Well, I did it, but I have obviously been living away long enough that my capacity for sugar has diminished! I was practically in a diabetic coma at the end of the afternoon!!! When Stephen phoned to ask what I wanted for dinner I answered "vegetables, fruit, water". That apparently translated into "curry" in Stephen's mind!! His curry was delicious, just not as detoxing as I perhaps needed!! Nor indeed was the wine, or the cider in the pub later... Oh, what the hell - it was Friday, it was needed and I can detox after Christmas.

They've tunneled out...

It has been a very sad few weeks at work. A lot of my friends (and a whole lot more folks besides) have left the company during a redundancy round. There have been a load of leaving presentations to go to, and tears to stiffle. Upper Lips have been stiffened and shoulders straightened as we adjust to life without our friends and co-workers. (Its never going to be the same....)

I was very involved in putting together Mandy's presentation, and thought she was very brave to give such a long speech thanking everyone - most people manage "Thank you. You were all lovely to work with. Best of luck for the future." before the catch in the throat, or disinterest, kicks in! She did have a post it note with "DON'T CRY" writ large on it...a good reminder!!

Last night we were at one heck of a Leaving Party! Five of the Escapee's (including Mandy and Richard) had organised a giant leaving bash, with bands and buffet and a (free) bar. It was lovely to see so many old familiar faces...and a few folks I had no idea who they were!!

It was very strange to be going to something like that when I had had no involvement with organising it!! All week people have been asking me about organisation, dress code, who's going...and I had to hold my hands up and say "I don't know"!!! I was contemplating asking to be allowed to hold a clipboard on the night - purely for therapy!

Monetary cut backs affect Tooth Fairy budget

When I was getting ready for work I asked Stephen to check under my pillow to see if there was anything there...but no! Nothing!! I wonder if the Tooth Fairy left the money at the dentists, because that was where the tooth was?? It can surely be the only explanation....

Unless the Tooth Fairy has been hit by severe budget cuts under this weeks Spending Review....I suppose that might be the reason. Maybe the TF budget won't stretch to leaving a Pound for the grown up girlies who are now a bit more gummy than they were.

What's the going rate for the Tooth Fairy?

I had a weekend of pain and discomfort thanks to my pesky tooth problem. Every now and again since May it would flare up and I'd have to go back to the dentist for another course of antibiotics. Not fun! After lots of niggling pain over the weekend I had a night of unspeakable agony. I got about 3 hours of sleep last night as the pain was excruciating. In an attempt to let Stephen get some sleep (coz I was sobbing and woke him up) I came downstairs about 5:30 to try and work through the pain. It was not a great night!

I phoned the dentist when I got to work and got an appointment for this afternoon. Stephen ran me up there, and it was as well he did.

Adding to the pain of THE tooth was the inconvenient fact that my teeth on the top on the same side have gone a bit sensitive. In an attempt to give me some pain relief, but also make sure that it was THE tooth that was giving me pain my lovely dentist decided to giveme shots along the bottom gum. Now, I've not had to have a filling or anything that required a shot since I was 13 and I remember them being rather painful. I gave Chris my best short-sighted look and reminded him that I was a big chicken when it came to this sort of thing. The sweetie told me to take deep breaths, steady myself and he hid the syringe until I said I was good to go. OMG! The relief was instantaneous! The pain was gone. I cannot describe the relief.

Now came the difficult decision. More antibiotics which controls the symptoms, but doesn't seem to clear the problem or.....EXTRACTION. Foooooooook!! What a choice! But actually not a choice at all....long term pain, or short term pain. Take it out!!

Actually it was fine. I didn't feel a thing. Another set of injections saw to that! I was pretty much numb from the cheeks to the shoulders!! He had the tooth out really quickly, with nothing more than a tug. And considering it was a wisdom tooth and I'd heard horror stories I was very glad it was painless! I was feeling mounting hyseria beforehand. I had a serious fit of the giggles! I think it was at this point that Chris knew he had to get the tooth out really quickly before I went from giggles to meltdown!!

I was sent of with instructions on what to do if I suddenly started spurting blood (thankfully I'm not a bleeder!) and instructions to go have a large glass of wine because I deserve it! Now that's my kind of dentist!!